


Like Real People Do

by strawbebbyy



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Prom, Slow Dancing, Takes place after the 2017 movie, the others are there but not much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 01:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawbebbyy/pseuds/strawbebbyy
Summary: He thinks, surprisingly calmly, that it would be easy to tell Richie the truth. It would be so, so easy to finally be honest with him. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue - Eddie’s never been brave, really, but right now he thinks he could be. Alone with Richie behind the gym, he thinks he could be brave just this once.--It's the Losers' senior prom.





	Like Real People Do

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have a significantly longer fic (like 24000 words) that I wrote as a fix-it for chapter 2, but I felt it was too derivative of other fix-its I've read and I didn't want to post it - so I cobbled together the parts I liked best into this bad boy.
> 
> Title from a Hozier song.

“Eddie, aren’t you ready yet?” The voice of one Sonia Kaspbrak floats up the stairs, slipping under the bathroom door to reach her son. “Your friends are here.”

“I’m coming, ma!” He takes one last glance at his reflection in the smudged mirror before conceding that he isn’t going to look any less awkward, no matter how many times he ties and unties his bowtie. Heaving a sigh, he scurries down the stairs as fast as he can without feeling like he’s going to fall.

His mom is at the foot of the stairs, and crowded in the doorway are Bill, Stan, Mike, and Richie. He offers them a little wave before his mother’s hands are grabbing at him and he’s forced to turn to her.

“Eddie-bear, are you sure you want to go?” Sonia says, straightening the lapels of Eddie’s jacket. She was less than thrilled about him going to prom - when he’d told her he planned on attending, she’d gone on a tirade about how such events were breeding grounds for immoral decisions. Of course, to her, even the mere thought that kids might leave prom and hook up somewhere was as big a threat as the ever-looming diseases she was so sure Eddie was going to contract. And the idea that some ‘delinquent’ could spike the drinks might even have been a bigger concern. To her, Eddie attending the event all but guaranteed he’d be propositioned by all sorts of ‘dirty girls’ and unknowingly be slipped alcohol in his fruit punch.

“I’m sure.” He squirms away from her insistent hands.

“Well, be careful.” She frowns, and then turns to the other four boys who are still huddled in the entryway. She eyes them disapprovingly. Eddie is allowed to see them - the ban she’d put in place to keep him from hanging out with the Losers had been pretty short-lived, no more than a month during the summer of ‘89 - but that didn’t mean Sonia liked them anymore than she had when she’d made the ban.

“Yeah, I will.” He kisses her cheek, something he didn’t want to do at 13 let alone 18, and then all but shoves his friends out the door, pointedly ignoring the way Richie still snickers about Sonia's insistence that Eddie kiss her goodbye.

They all pile into Stan’s car, which is parked at the curb. Richie gets shotgun, which nobody fights him on. Bill, Mike, and Eddie settle into the back seats, Eddie stuck in the middle because, much to his dismay, he’s still the smallest of the bunch. Richie had wanted to take his car, but they collectively had vetoed that idea - of the group, only he and Stan have their own vehicles, and while Richie’s car isn’t a hunk of junk exactly, it’s a near thing. And besides, Eddie’s pretty sure that if Richie was driving then there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that his mom would have let him go.

“It sucks we don’t have dates.” Bill says amiably, even though Eddie thinks they all know none of them really  _ wanted  _ a date. None of them even really wanted to go to prom, but being their Senior year they’ve all started getting that creeping, lurking feeling that time is running out. Just a few months and they’ll be going off to college and then they won’t be one short bike ride away from each others’ houses. The haunting, lingering thought is ever-present in the back of their minds, reminding them that the days are ticking away, a countdown clock to the moment all of this is gone.

So they’d decided to go to prom if only to make the most of the time left; for the sake of the memories. And thus, none of them are especially bothered that they don’t have a date (not that any of them could possibly know that in the coming years, memories won't much matter.)

Although, there  _ is  _ someone Eddie would have liked to go to prom with if he’s honest, but he would never have been able to go through with it, anyway, so does it count? Not like he could have just asked one of his closest friends to be his actual date, right? So he decides it doesn’t count, not really.

"Aren't I technically someone's date?" Mike, sitting on Eddie's left, pipes up. "Who ended up doing that form to get me in to prom, anyway?"

"Me," Bill says from Eddie's right. "It was stupid. I know you're not a student of the school, but it's still dumb we had to do  _ paperwork _ to get you in."

“ _ I _ have a date.” Richie grins, turning in his seat to look at Eddie.

Eddie feels some awful sense of disappointment and jealousy rise in the back of his throat. Disappointment because Richie had a date and didn’t tell him, jealousy because Richie has a damn date and _ it’s not Eddie _ .

“Didn’t your mom tell you, Eds? She’s meeting me there.”

“Fuck you.” Of course it was a joke. It was so obvious. Eddie feels immediately silly for thinking otherwise. As if anyone would go to prom with Richie.  _ Anyone besides you _ , a voice in the back of his mind whispers and he crushes that motherfucker like a bug.

“Oh, she will. We’re gonna sneak out of the dance early and get real cozy right in the backseat where you’re sitting.”

The whole group collectively groans, but Richie ignores them and reaches back as if to pinch Eddie’s cheek. Eddie swats his hand away before it can make contact.

“Beep beep, Richie.” Bill nudges the back of Richie’s seat.

“You should really sit in your seat the right way, too. It’s probably  _ so  _ distracting for Stan that you’re turned around and reaching back here and stuff. Do you know how much more likely we are to get in a car accident if the driver is distracted?” Eddie’s hand flies out, plucking the undone bowtie from around Richie’s neck. In the driver’s seat, Stan rolls his eyes. “And what’s this? Don’t know how to tie it or something?”

“Did you ever think maybe your rambling is even more distracting?” Richie snatches the red strip of fabric back. “And of course I know how to tie it. I chose not to. It’s called ‘style,’ Eds.”

They're still bickering when Stan pulls into the parking lot of Derry High School and the whole lot of them comes tumbling from the car. The front door has a big poster on it, a dingy tan-brown thing that reads “Derry High School Prom ‘94” in red, old-timey circus font over a faded illustration of a bigtop tent. A very unique kind of dread coils in Eddie’s gut as the five of them stare at that poster, but he doesn’t get the chance to think too hard about the ominous (although ultimately harmless) poster because Richie is pushing past his friends, slapping them on the back as he goes.

“Well, let’s get in there, men!”

The inside of the school gymnasium is lit dimly by strings of yellow-orange lights. There are fabric swags draped from the ceiling, broadly striped red and white things that gather in the center of the gym’s high ceiling and stretch out to the walls. The tables, tucked neatly on one side of the room, are round with striped tablecloths that match the swags. There are balloons in a wide variety of colors - tied to table centerpieces, bunched in the corners of the room, floating loose between the fabric drapes, and framing the doors. Here and there the walls are dotted with posters in a similar style as the one they’d seen on the front door of the school, advertising elephant rides, clown performances, and all manner of sideshow acts.

“It’s circus themed?” Stan hisses, gaze flicking from one part of the room to the next.

Richie snickers a bit. “Well that’s just an awful theme.”

“Yeah, that’s clearly the problem, Richie.” Eddie himself is expecting an unfortunately familiar clown to materialize from the shadowy corners.

Bill elbows him, and then shoots the lot of them a look. “It’s not a big deal, guys. It’s just some decorations.” But even he seems a little put off, eyeing one of the posters warily.

“Yeah, we defeated It, remember?” Mike adds, very matter-of-factly, and that settles everyone’s minds a bit.

Still, as they choose a table and get comfortable, Eddie can’t help but feel like this is some cruel joke. Whoever chose this theme is the absolute worst.

Eddie watches all of his classmates dance awkwardly, the girls in their fancy dresses with jewelry glinting in the low light, and the guys in their tuxedos. He drums his fingers on the tabletop, and does  _ not  _ think about how he kind of really wants to ask Richie to dance, or how they only came tonight because they know they’re running out of time to do things together.

Except he actually definitely thinks about both of those things. These guys have been his friends for so long, and they’ve been through so much together (more than most people have, he’d bet.) The thought that he’ll leave Derry and go off to college is terrifying, because as much as he wants to say he’ll stay in contact, he can’t guarantee that he will. Bev and Ben both made that promise, and they couldn’t keep it. They forgot. Deep down, in some innate way, he knows they did. They didn’t get too busy to call, or make new friends. They  _ forgot _ . He doesn’t want to forget.

He doesn’t want to forget days spent splashing in the Barrens, or drowsing in the clubhouse because it was too hot to do anything else. He doesn’t want to forget goofing off in photo booths, crashing on the floor in a heap after marathoning movies at the Uris house, riding their bikes together and struggling to keep up with Bill on Silver, or winter days spent reading comics and watching cartoons while huddled in blankets in someone’s living room.

Across the table he catches Bill’s eye, and reflected in his gaze he can see the same sad nostalgia he’s feeling. It’s not really comforting, but it’s nice to know he’s not the only one feeling this way.

“Are you alright, Eddie?” Mike asks, startling Eddie out of his thoughts. “You look upset.”

“I’m fine,” he manages to spit out, but he knows as soon as he says it that it’s not very convincing. Mike furrows his brows slightly.

“I think Eds just needs some fresh air.” Richie grabs him by the wrist, standing up abruptly. “C’mon, Eddie Spaghetti, I’ll go with you.”

“I’m fine, really. And don’t call me that.” Eddie starts to protest, but Richie is already tugging him towards the back door of the gymnasium.

They slip out the door and emerge on the concrete steps that lead down into the staff parking lot. On the opposite side of the lot is the track field, which is dark and empty without the big stadium lights turned on. It’s a very different atmosphere than the tackily decorated interior - out here it’s quiet and solitary. No crowds of their peers, no chaperones glaring at all the kids with suspicion. There is only the cool spring breeze, music just barely audible from inside the gym, and the rhythmic chirping of a cricket or two.

They sit together on the top step, Eddie fidgeting and pulling at his sleeves. His palms are sweating, which is stupid. He’s been alone with Richie tons of times, this isn’t any different.

“You really alright, Eds?” Richie finally asks, bumping Eddie gently with his shoulder.

“Yeah. Are  _ you _ ? You dragged me out here like the school was on fire or something.”

“I’m great!” Richie offers a big grin, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Never been better.”

An uncomfortable, stifling silence descends upon them like a thick smoke. It suffocates them until the muffled music playing from within the building changes to something Eddie recognizes.

“I know this song,” he says. “It was on that tape you gave me.”

“What? What tape?” Richie looks at him like he’s crazy, brows drawn together in confusion.

“You don’t remember? You gave me a mixtape forever ago. Shit, we must’ve been like fourteen or something.”

“No offence, Eds, but that doesn’t really sound like me.”

“Dude, I swear you did! No, don’t look at me like that, asshole, it happened! I am  _ not  _ making this up.”

Richie squints at him. “How can you be so sure?”

“I know because I still have it, dumbass!”

“Aw, Eddie, you kept the mixtape you thought I gave you? How cute.” Richie pinches his cheek and Eddie leans away from his touch, feeling the tips of his ears getting warm.

“You did give it to me! I remember you practically cornered me in the clubhouse one day and dropped it in my hands. You did some absolutely terrible Elvis voice and said  _ ‘This is for you, Eds, baby, _ ’ and I told you not to call me Eds and that your impression fucking sucked.”

Richie laughs like that’s the funniest shit he’s heard all week.

“Yeah, alright, that sounds like me. What songs were on the tape?”

“I don’t remember, it’s been a long time since I listened to it.”

That’s a Goddamn lie. He listened to it, like, two weeks ago. It’s filled with an assortment of songs - disco music Eddie’s embarrassed to admit he likes, rock songs he listened to with Richie that his mom would never approve of, and more dumb love songs than he cares to think about. He hates that, even now, when the tape plays one of those songs his face gets hot and his heart tap dances wildly in his chest. Not like they mean anything, he reminds himself sternly. They were just songs Richie thought he’d like, nothing less and nothing more.

He glances over and finds Richie is already looking at him. He averts his gaze as quickly as he can, staring at his dumb dress shoes like they’re the most interesting thing in the world right now.

“Excuse me, sir. Could I trouble you for a dance?” Richie’s putting on some voice that Eddie thinks is supposed to sound dignified, but it just sounds like Richie Tozier trying too hard to be fancy. Then, he adds in his normal voice, “It would be stupid to come to prom and not dance once, right?” Eddie thinks he can see high spots of color blooming faintly on Richie’s cheeks, but he can’t be certain.

“Uh, sure,” he stammers. Smooth, Eddie. Very eloquent. Richie just flashes him a toothy grin, hopping up from the step they’d been sitting on and pulling Eddie to his feet.

The song they can hear through the brick walls of the gymnasium is something slow and romantic, because isn’t that just Eddie’s luck?

Eddie cannot possibly be expected to actually make eye contact with Richie. Not as Richie’s hands come to rest comfortably on Eddie’s waist, like this is the most normal thing ever. Instead, he looks at his own hands on Richie’s shoulders and feels so many conflicting emotions that he almost can’t stand it. Sadness, nostalgia, fear and so much love he thinks he might burst with it.

It’s been love for so long, he knows that. But it’s been a secret, quiet sort of thing, felt between annoying nicknames and bad impressions and bickering over pointless shit. He couldn’t say, though, when it  _ became  _ love. Did it happen all those days Richie would share the pudding cup from his lunch with Eddie since his mom never let him pack sweets? Was it the days Eddie would sit in Richie’s room, frustrated almost to tears by his mother, when Richie tried so damn hard to make Eddie smile (Richie’s face always lit up when he finally pulled a tiny, watery laugh from Eddie.) Was it at the Aladdin watching  _ Hellraiser _ , where Richie shared his popcorn and let Eddie squeeze his hand if he got scared? Was it one of the many days they spent swimming in the Barrens, or one of the winter days where they’d have snowball fights, build lopsided snowmen, and drink cocoa before falling asleep on the Tozier family couch? Was it the night, after the events at 29 Neibolt, when Richie climbed the trellis outside the Kaspbrak home and knocked on Eddie’s window until the shorter boy let him inside? Eddie had complained that if his mom knew Richie had snuck in they’d both be dead. Despite that, they had laid together in Eddie’s bed, sides pressed together from shoulder to ankle as they read comics in the dark, Richie holding the flashlight and Eddie holding the comic book.

_ All of those _ , he realizes. It was all of those and everything in between. It happened in increments, in the good and the bad times; in the big and the little things. On some level, it feels like it was unavoidable. Like he couldn’t have stopped it if he’d wanted to.

But all of this is far too much for Eddie to hold within himself. His feelings are too strong and too grand. He thinks, surprisingly calmly, that it would be easy to tell Richie the truth. It would be so,  _ so  _ easy to finally be honest with him. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue - Eddie’s never been brave, really, but right now he thinks he could be. Alone with Richie behind the gym, he thinks he could be brave just this once. 

“You know how people make a really big deal about asking people to prom?” Richie asks suddenly.

“Uh… yeah.”

“I was gonna do something like that and ask you to go with me. You know, just to mess with you.”

Eddie’s heart sinks just a little and he rethinks the idea that he could tell Richie how he feels. It’s best if he bites his tongue, he reminds himself. Best not to get swept up in the moment and his own emotions. He wants so badly to be honest, though.

“Yeah? Do I even want to know what you would have done?”

“You do want to know, because it would’ve been funny! I was going to get a big poster board and draw an inhaler on it.”

“I already don’t like where this is going.”

“And then I was going to write ‘It would take my breath away if you went to prom with me.’”

“That’s not funny,” Eddie insists, but he can feel laughter bubbling up and he has to bite his lip to keep it at bay.

“You’re laughing, you think it’s funny!” Richie’s snickering, mirth bright in his eyes, and Eddie’s helpless to contain his own giggles any longer.

“I would have been so mad at you if you’d done that,” he says, but there’s no edge to it at all.

“I know, why do you think I wanted to do it?”

Their laughter fades away into the still night air, and Eddie stares at Richie. The moonlight falls across his face, drapes itself over the slight curls in his hair, and dances in his eyes. There’s still a smile playing at the corners of his mouth and joy in his soft gaze. Eddie’s heart feels like someone’s stomped it into a fine paste.

“Don’t forget me after we leave Derry.”

“What?” Richie tilts his head a bit. “Of course I won’t forget you, Eddie Spaghetti!”

Eddie knows that’s an empty promise. He knows, and it makes his eyes sting with tears that he has to blink back. Richie’s looking at him strangely, smile falling from his face.

“You’re really sure you’re okay, Eds?”

“Yeah.” He takes a deep breath. Before he can say anything more, however, the back door swings open and Stan pokes his head out.

Eddie and Richie jump, putting distance between them. Richie shoves his hands in his pockets and Eddie keeps his eyes locked on the grass.

“Uh… why do you two look so guilty?” Stan looks from one to the other. “Did Richie spike the punch or something?”

“Aw, c’mon Stan, you really think so lowly of me?”

Stan fixes him with a stern look. “Anyways. You guys have been out here forever and we were worried something was actually wrong with Eddie, since he was acting so strange before.”

“Nope, no problems here.” Richie shifts his weight between his feet. “We should head inside, though. We’re missing the whole prom!”

“Yeah, alright,” Eddie agrees, and tries not to feel too morose about losing the moment he and Richie had been having. Something in his chest clenches and twists unpleasantly and he knows he's not going to get another chance as good as this one. It's now or never.

Stan eyes them suspiciously before disappearing back inside. Richie starts for the big concrete steps, but in a shocking moment of boldness, Eddie grabs him by the wrist.

“Hey, Rich,” he says, taking a deep breath and trying to find it in himself to say what he needs to say. He knows Richie won’t feel the same way, and it might make things weird, but the idea of moving out of Derry never having been honest with Richie is somehow worse than the idea that this might go terribly. He tries to find the feelings he’d had earlier, when he’d thought he could be brave. That courage is still in there somewhere, it has to be.

“Yeah? What’s up, man?”

He can feel his palms getting clammy, nerves clawing their way up his body. He can feel fear reaching it’s cold fingers down the back of his neck and making the hairs there stand on end. His heat hammers out a heavy beat in his chest.

Clenching his hands into tight, nervous fists, he finally spits it out. “I’m in love with you.” His voice wavers when he says it, but he says it and that’s what counts. He wishes he had his inhaler, though, because panic is rising in his throat.

Richie’s quiet for a moment too long, and Eddie finally brings himself to look at his friend. Instead of the shock or disgust he expected, though, he sees that Richie is grinning widely enough to make his eyes and nose crinkle.

“You’d better not be joking.”

“W-what?” He splutters. “Why the fuck would I be joking about this?”

“I love you, too,” Richie says instead of answering the question, throwing an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and leaning in to kiss his cheek. Eddie lets him, face flushing. For once he doesn’t care if he’s blushing, though.

“We should go inside before Stan or someone comes looking for us,” Eddie offers a little sheepishly. His heart leaps when Richie drops his arm from around his shoulders to instead twine their fingers together. He knows he’s smiling like a fucking idiot, but he doesn’t care about that very much, either.

They walk hand-in-hand back into the ugly circus themed prom, and Eddie doesn’t miss the knowing glances their friends all give them. He can be courageous, he thinks. Not all the time, but sometimes. And maybe being sometimes-brave is good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Me writing this fic:  
*googles prom in the 1990s* *listens to 90s love songs* *googles when promposals started* *looks at pictures of 90s fashion* *googles prom outfits in the 90s* *listens to 90s love songs* *debates if it was an 80s or 90s trend to wear sunglasses at prom*
> 
> Anyway promposals started in the 2000s but I'm just gonna say I took an artistic liberty.


End file.
